It “implies different classes of citizenship”, and it could “put[...] into question matters that have been settled by treaty” (that last from the Canadian UN Ambassador). Apparently our vote against is specifically because the declaration is incompatible with our own law.

I guess I don’t understand the political ramifications of something like this (for example, the article mentions that the Treaty of Waitangi “already provides an appropriate system of redress” — whether that’s true or not, surely it’s not incompatible with adopting a declaration that requires such a system?). But if our official line is correct, and the declaration is unsuitable for exactly these four countries,¹ surely that should ring little warning bells? I mean, if New Zealand is really “far ahead of other countries in promoting the rights of indigenous people”, and we can’t endorse this document because it would hold us back, doesn’t that suggest the document is flawed?

*Sigh*. I’ll steer clear of politics I think.

(Thanks to Robin for the link, and also to Rebecca and Shaun on Facebook for trying to educate me.)

Notes:

1. According to Wikipedia, the US has 0.82% (2005 census) indigenous population; Canada had 3.4% in 2001; Australia 2.2% (also from 2001) and New Zealand 14.6% in 2006.

I’m intrigued, confused, and slightly worried about the four votes against. First intrigued: because these are four countries that have reached some sort of legal accommodation with their indigenous populations, albeit after a historical process that is pretty damn embarassing on all counts.² I would have expected them to be in favour of promoting that sort of accommodation process in general.

And then I get confused, because when I read the articles of the declaration itself, I don’t find anything obviously unreasonable, or anything that I’d expect New Zealand (as the example I’m most familiar with) to be strenously against. I thought I had it with article 26, which begins “Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired”³, but then articles 27 and 28 (dealing with establishing an open process for adjudicating claims and the right to redress) seem to address exactly this issue, so I’m left with no idea quite what the objection is.

And that’s where the worry comes in. I have a couple of hazy ideas of where the problem might lie, but I don’t like either of them very much.

The first is an anti-apartheid argument: the declaration as it stands will promote the existence of indigenous ‘nations within a nation’, with separate education and legal systems, which only increases the potential for discrimination. The danger of such an argument is that if it’s persuasive enough, it leads to integration as the only solution, and that’s obviously a solution the declaration does not accept as allowable.⁴

The more unpleasant possibility is that these four nations all consider the solutions they have come up with as not meeting the standards of the declaration. I’d like to think better of my country, but I honestly don’t know enough of the real politics involved to say.

So can anyone with more political savvy help me out? This is an honest question, I’d be glad of any answer you can come up with.

Notes:

1. Hat tip: of all places, I came upon this news on BoingBoing.
2. I don’t know anything about Canadian history, but I presume they also have skeletons in their closets.
3. This is problematic in New Zealand, because there are people living on those lands, whose families have lived there for generations; part of the complexity of these issues is that you have in general multiple people with fair claim to the land, so that there’s simply no solution that will be completely just.
4. Article 8 gives the right to not be subjected to forced assimilation or integration.

In Golden Bay I stayed with my folks, on their farm. Despite this, there are no photos of sheep. We did lots of other traditional Golden Bay things though. For instance…

• Beaches
  • Tata (and a shag)
  • Wharariki (walking on trees, and a seal)
  • Bainham
  • on the Abel Tasman (more shags)
• Haymaking (you can see how two blokes marry in the Bay, if you’re interested)
• Swimming in
  • the (upper) Takaka
  • the Abel Tasman
  • the swimming hole up the road

In Wanganui I stayed with Ian and his fiancée Katie. Ian is a pilot and flying instructor, and I finally (after many years of promises, of living in different places and of foul weather when we did coincide) got to fly with him, in a wee four-seater with Katie and a friend in the back. We went looking for the Bridge to Nowhere but didn’t find it (we were looking on the Whanganui River, whereas it turns out the bridge is across a side gorge). From the air the texture of the stands of punga (tree ferns) is incredible, but unfortunately I couldn’t capture it on camera through the window of the plane.

A couple of days before I left Ewan turned up, and we took ourselves off to the beach for a bout of bridge-building — most of the photos are from that day.

On the subject, there’s a fantastic animation on YouTube: Kiwi!.

Previous editions:

• Animals Have Problems Too
• White Ninja gets a Kiwi
• kiwi en kiwi gaan nergens over

If you didn’t get some of the jokes, I’ve got some cross-cultural explanations after the little “read the rest” linky thing.

• How to Prepare a Kiwi: you see, overseas they call the fruit just a “kiwi” as well. I know, weird, huh?
• AHPT: you see, overseas they call the fruit just a “kiwi”, as well. I know, it’s still bizarre.
• White Ninja: you sea, overseers they calles the … oh, sod it, you get it right?
• Kiwi! I actually had to explain to someone over here that kiwis can’t fly. … Okay, I can see how that clip doesn’t make much sense if you don’t know that.
• kiwi en kiwi gaan nergens over: sorry, can’t help you with that one. It doesn’t make any more sense if you speak Dutch. (The title means literally “kiwi and kiwi go over nowhere” and idiomatically “kiwi and kiwi talk about nothing”. Not that that helps much.)

The gig went off, although the Sugar Factory was far too hot and a bit too loud. I walked off with a CD, in case anyone wants to check out the sound, although it doesn’t quite live up to their energy onstage.

And (jump down… you know the drill) the Black Seeds are going to be here in September. No news exactly when yet, but they’re touring again (Kiwis: catch the down home tour in August) and you can be very sure you’ll hear about it when I know what the plans are.

Oh yeah, and it’s really summer at last. Jump down, turn around…

I’ll be travelling on December 30th and 31st, arriving in Auckland. The plan is to spend a week or ten days making my way down the North Island, calling on friends and relations along the way, and get home to Golden Bay in early January. Two or three weeks at home, then down to Dunedin for a fortnight catching up with the old cosc crowd, particularly with what they’re doing in the language-and-evolution line (this is officially work time, although it’ll be a bit relaxed, being high summer and all). Finally another week or so wandering the South Island, before flying out from Christchurch on February 12th.

Do the numbers of weeks match the dates? I don’t know, I don’t care, I’m going home!

Like I said, Wheeee!

So join me in a moment of silence for Arcadia, then hie thee down there to the clearing-out sale. It’s on Great King St, just north of the university, almost directly opposite the KFC.

So I started looking around a bit more, in case anything else momentous has happened (like Auckland disappearing, or a bridge over Cook Strait popping up overnight). No such luck, but it seems that two other pretty cool Kiwi bands are planning appearances here in the not-too-distant future.

Fat Freddy’s Drop will be in Paradiso on August 18th, then Lowlands the day after. The site is a godawful Flash monster, but I did manage to find some audio: the “Radio Fitchie” link in the bottom right hand corner plays one of their tracks. I don’t know whether it’s any good, ‘cos I’m on a machine without speakers. (Update: it appears the “Mad Feats” section has some audio too. It appears I’m far too uncool to listen to this stuff, or even to find it.)

The Black Seeds are advertising a European tour, apparently coming through Amsterdam. They don’t say when, but their latest booked gig is August 18th in Bristol, so sometime after that I guess. (Btw, some of the links to the gig page are broken, but it’s a pretty braindead error, read the URL and take a wild stab in the dark…) The site has audio. I presume it works. See above comment about speakers.